The ESP8266 has become practically the 555 chip of WiFi connected microcontrollers. Traditionally, you’d buy one on a little breakout board with some pins and a few connectors, and then wire up anything else you need. The ESP8266’s big brother, the ESP32, hasn’t quite taken over from the ESP8266, but it has a lot more power and many more options. [Andreas] has a new video that shows seven new ESP32 boards that have integral displays. These boards can simplify a lot of applications where you need both WiFi and a user interface.
Of the boards examined, six of them have OLED displays, but one has an E-paper display. To summarize results, [Andreas] summarized his findings on these seven along with others in an online spreadsheet.
The boards include:
- TTGO with 2.9 E-paper display
- TTGO TS V1.2
- TTGO T4
- TTGO Pro V2
- TTGO LoRa V2
- Wemos
- Wifi Kit32
There are two pieces of software to do testing and those are available on GitHub if you want to test new boards or do your own testing.
The review is very practical, examining power consumption, available pins, and how easy it is to use on a breadboard. Since [Andreas] comes tot his with a voice of experience he also looks at things like battery switches, and whether the device crashes if you disconnect the USB power. Spoiler alert: He was not happy with the E-paper display board.
These display-bearing devices are much easier than using a separate ESP32 for each pair of digits. If you need a much bigger display, there’s always this.
Not a single word about the M5Stack?
http://www.m5stack.com/
In the comments he notes that he will be reviewing the M5Stack still but considering the uptick in both features and price he didn’t review it with this group of boards.
I was thinking the same :)
In the comments he notes that he will be reviewing the M5Stack still but considering the uptick in both features and price he didn’t review it with this group of boards.
what does its autonomy in deep sleep look like?
This does look an amazing piece of kit for the price
Isn’t the Wemos board a “fake” ?
Most of them are.
Chinese manufacturers seem to see brand names more as categories.
So everything that has an ESP8266 or ESP32, or something similar (or that just looks as if) may be called a “Wemos”.
Kind of like a lot of product names are used in US as a general meaning to all products of the same use, like Kleenex etc.
“Most of them are” – so they do not contain an ESP32? Or are there faked ESP32 chips on the market?
No, they aren’t actually made by Wemos, which is a specific company that makes probably the best, most reliable ESP8266/ESP32 dev boards. A lot of other makers clone their products and/or put their logo on their own products like these.
It’s a shame that they are not copying how Wemos/LOLIN manages to ship items as fast as they are doing.
The boards are ok, however, the 9 days shipping (average for all my Wemos orders) is what makes Wemos/LOLIN my go to company for ESP boards.
I once managed to receive a board 7 days after I ordered it, which is very close to what I would expect when ordering locally.
Average shipping for my AliExpress orders, excluding Wemos, is 38 days, with 72 days being the max.
don’t know what country you are in, but I got most of my aliexpess electronic stuff in 2 to 4 weeks. Normally at the lower end for places I’ve got things from before that I know are fast..
And you know you are actually getting wemos boards if you buy them from the wemos store (it’s about the only way…) – the ‘lite’ esp32 board isn’t bad https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/WEMOS-LOLIN32-Lite-V1-0-0-wifi-bluetooth-board-based-ESP-32-esp32-Rev1-MicroPython-4MB/1331105_32831394824.html?spm=2114.12010608.0.0.5c2d30efgfzpIy
But I really liked their pro esp32 board ie https://wiki.wemos.cc/products:lolin32:lolin32_pro – but they are no longer making it.. ???? I think I bought the last 10 or so a few months ago (they were < $9USD)…
The shipping costs also recently went up quite a lot..
They have actually changed the name of the store to LOLIN, but only partially.
I still go through wemos.cc.
Yes, the only complaint I have is how they handled the switch from LOLIN32 -> LOLIN32 Pro/Lite -> D32.
All the sudden the inventory dropped, and nobody gave an answer in the forum (stock issue, redesign of new boards, issue with current boards etc.).
I only managed to get one LOLIN32 Pro, which is a shame as it fits a lot of my projects perfectly (microSD).
I normally use my D1 mini Lite’ instead of my LOLIN32 Lite’, as the D1 is cheaper and still able to solve most tasks for the simple projects.
Don’t know which country you’re in, but I usually get my local stuff next day.
But yes, AliExpress is anywhere from 2-3 weeks to 3 months.
Shipping from local storage is next day, however, electronic components, dev boards and all the other nice stuff are normally stored in a remote warehouse which adds 2 days (I’m guessing that they have a storage facility in a nearby country). And they are only handling shipping in the weekdays, so worst case is around 6 days.
The 7 days included weekend, where I can see that it was picked up, sorted and sent by airplane.
I love his videos. I have another one that is TTGO with Oled and 18650 battery compartment on the back.
Those 2 big displays aren’t actually OLED, they’re just LCD TFT.